[Talk-us] Postal Code Extract (zip vs zcta)

Bryce Nesbitt bryce2 at obviously.com
Thu Sep 5 00:10:46 UTC 2013


On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 4:37 AM, Richard Welty <rwelty at averillpark.net>wrote:

> On 9/4/13 7:16 AM, dies38061 at mypacks.net wrote:
>
>> >From the page which Bryce referred to in http://lists.openstreetmap.**
>> org/pipermail/talk-us/2013-**September/011738.html<http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2013-September/011738.html>comes the following passage:
>>
>> "The term ZCTA was created to differentiate between this entity and true
>> USPS ZIP Codes.
>> ZCTA is a trademark of the U.S. Census Bureau; ZIP Code is a trademark of
>> the U.S. Postal Service."
>>
>> Therefore, ZCTA information _approximates_ ZIP information for census
>> purposes.  If you want to map/use ZIP code information, don't use the ZCTA
>> information to do it, I would infer.--ceyockey
>>
>>  any area-oriented representation of zip data will be an approximation.
> it's the nature of the beast.


+1 on that.  ZIP codes are not as simple as they seem.
For a great *animation* of what a ZCTA is, see:
http://www.census.gov/geo/ZCTA/zcta_delineation_animation.html
The census bureau was compelled to build an alternative to pure ZIP codes
for all the reasons cited so far and more.

Note that ZIP codes change also: a few thousand a year are adjusted
according to USPS.  Some zip codes even cross state boundaries.  They
frequently cross county and city lines.

See http://www.carrierroutes.com/more-zip-code-faqs.html#zipcodemapping
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